Scraping the Bone: Ten Dark Tales

by William Malmborg

  Carol wanted to say something else but couldn’t bring herself to do it. Instead she bent forward and looked under the stall door. A pair of long trench boots stood a few inches away. She couldn’t see the rest of him.

  He was standing right outside her door.

  Fear hit.

  Carol didn’t know what to do. The silence was bad, but speaking was out of the question, even though he had to know she was there. Even her bladder had clamped up.

  Her heartbeat quickened.

  Eventually the silence got to be too much.

  “What do you want?” she asked. She wanted to sound forceful but couldn’t manage it. Any courage the liquor had given her earlier was long gone. Exhaustion and fear filled the void.

  No answer.

  Earlier she had been ready to do whatever was necessary to take Kelly from her abusive husband. The slap hadn’t been particularly hard, and most certainly wasn’t the worst thing he had ever done to her, but had been the last straw. Terry had passed out after that. His evening ritual of drinking a twelve pack of tall boys once dinner was complete always knocked him out. Carol would have said something about his drinking years ago, but knew it often led to long nights of silence, which she cherished. He was only mean during the first few beers. After that it was somewhat pleasant.

  The man outside the stall didn’t say anything or do anything. Carol peeked under the door again. He was still there.

  What did he want?

  Open the door and do something, Carol’s mind urged. One good kick from him would rip the door from its frame so opening it wouldn’t exactly be dumb. At the same time she didn’t want to make the situation any easier. She wasn’t like that anymore. She wasn’t the woman who would stand still while Terry beat her so as not to make him any angrier by running or fighting back. Her hands had always tried to protect her face, but that was it.

  Carol looked under the door again.

  The boots were still there, laces open and dangling onto the stained tile floor. What was the rest of him like? And why was he just standing there?

  She pictured a man waiting by a stall door; his hands ready to grab the helpless woman within once the door was open. She was that woman, but was she really helpless?

  Her purse was sitting atop the plastic toilet paper dispenser. Inside was a small can of pepper spray. Her husband, a former police officer, had once given it to her in case anything happened while walking to her car. This had been back before he started drinking heavily, and while she had still worked the evening shift at a bar called Strike Three in Chicago. Unfortunately she hadn’t been able to get the spray out in time one night six years earlier. Even if she had, the chances of fighting off three young men (she assumed they were young but couldn’t tell because of the ski masks) were pretty slim. She probably could have taken one or two out with the pepper spray, but not the third.

  She pulled the can of spray from her purse.

  The rape had been the start of it all. Terry had never been able to catch the bastards. For over a year he spent all his time around that bar hoping they would come back, but they never did. He also put continuous pressure on the DNA team to find a match, but they never came up with anything.

  Carol got the spray ready. Now all she needed was the courage to open the door. One shot in the eyes with the spray and the guy wouldn’t be able to do anything to her.

  One shot with the spray six years earlier and Kelly might never have been born.

  Carol pushed that thought away. Being raped was bad enough, but not being able to wish it away for fear that her wonderful baby girl would never have been born was worse.

  “Mommy!” Kelly screamed.

  Her daughter’s voice mustered the courage she needed. Carol twisted the lock and yanked the door back.

  No one was there.

  The shoes were empty.

  “Mommy!” Kelly screamed again.

  Carol raced from the bathroom.

  A dark car was skidding out of the gravel parking lot. Kelly was inside, her tiny fists pounding on the back window.

  Carol ran.

  The car was faster.

  Carol went to her own car. Even in the darkness she could see that all four tires were flat. This didn’t stop her from getting in and trying to give chase. It was no use, though. By the time she pulled out of the rest stop the car was nowhere to be seen.

  Jacob’s Gift

  “Oh my God! He’s alive. Stop! He’s alive. Don’t bury him!” Jacob’s shouts silenced the small crowd of gatherers who had come to mourn and watch little Timmy being put to rest. Father Jessup stood startled, his small funeral Bible threatening to fall from his arthritic hands.

  Jacob looked around at his family’s faces. There was pity upon them -- pity for him, he realized. It was so sad. Young Jacob losing his even younger brother and then thinking he was still alive. So sad.

  Jacob felt anger arise at their known thoughts and shouted, “He’s not dead,” and turned back to Timmy’s body. The chest which had taken a deep breath just moments before was still again.

  Tears began to fall from Jacob’s eyes. No, he thought. You can’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. The chest suddenly rose again. “HE’S ALIVE!” Jacob shouted.

  A hand came out of nowhere and took Jacob’s arms and pulled him back. There was fury in the grip, but fury that would be held back until a more appropriate time. His mother would never punish him in front of these people. No. They would not tolerate it, especially not now. “Jacob honey, you’re going to have to let go. Timmy needs you to let go.” His mother had tears in her eyes, tears that smeared her black mascara. She had only worn it so it would smear and that way make her sadness even more pronounced.

  “But he’s alive. I saw him breathing.”

  Mother was embarrassed by his obvious madness and quickly glanced at the gatherers. They all turned their heads away, as if none of this was being seen or acknowledged.

  Jacob turned his head back in the direction of Timmy’s casket and thought to himself. Please get up. Show them you’re not dead.

  There was a sudden gasp from the crowd and for a moment Jacob thought that Timmy had listened and risen. He hadn’t. But his casket had suddenly tipped and threatened to fall. Uncle Ben stopped this from happening completely.

  Everyone thought it was a gust of wind or some earth tremor. Jacob, however, knew the truth. Timmy had tried to get up but failed. Even people who had seen his attempt would deny it later, for things like that didn’t happen in the real world. Little boys who had drowned in pools earlier in the week didn’t get up from their caskets. That just didn’t happen.

  Jacob received several painful paddle strikes when he got home later that day and then was locked in his bedroom without being served dinner. “Don’t ever embarrass me like that again in front of my family,” were the words that accompanied the punishment. Nothing was said about Timmy. Mother didn’t really care that he had died.

  That night while lying on his stomach (not his back because it was too painful from the paddle) Jacob thought about Timmy and what it was like for him at that moment. Though he had pleaded with his family not to bury him, the casket had been closed, lowered, and sealed into the earth by dirt. Poor Timmy. He would awaken while buried and then suffocate to death. Not before breaking all his fingernails and wearing his fingertips to the bone trying to claw his way out. Poor Timmy. How long would it take? How much air would be trapped within the casket? Would it be like drowning all over again?

  * * *

  After several minutes of thinking about this Jacob couldn’t stand it anymore and rose from his bed. A groan escaped his lips as his back cried out, but it was the only sound he made.

  Putting his ear to the door he listened for his mother. If she were awake she would be making a sound, unless she was once again listening to see if he really were sleeping.

  The punishment he had received earlier would probably have satisfied her for the night and the silence was a true one. Using the
paperclip he kept stored under his desk, Jacob opened the locked door. He had learned how to do this several months earlier after the terrible night his mother had given him a laxative with dinner and then locked him in the bedroom. His cries to be let out and use the bathroom had been met with laughter from her.

  Since then he had vowed never to be locked in the bedroom again while needing to go to the bathroom and learned how to open the door.

  There was a loud click and then the door was open. Jacob waited to see if the sound had been heard. The house stayed silent.

  Jacob pushed open the door and stepped out into the hallway.

  Before his father’s death, Jacob had been given a bike for his birthday. He had just begun to learn how to ride it when his father had the heart attack. After that, his mother forbid him to use the bike for reasons unknown, but kept it around so family members could see what a good parent she was. So good, she had given her son a bike for his birthday.

  Fortunately, the saying was correct and Jacob had never forgotten how to ride.

  Because his mother kept his shoes locked up at night in her closet, Jacob had to ride the bike barefoot. Thankfully it was summer and the night warm, so his toes did not turn into little ice cubes.

  The cemetery where Timmy had been laid to rest was a little over three miles from their home and it would have taken only twenty minutes for him to ride if he hadn’t had to duck behind something whenever headlights appeared on the horizon. Adults didn’t like kids to be out after dark. It was dangerous.

  Thirty-five minutes after leaving his house, Jacob arrived at the gate of the cemetery. A broken camera looked at him from a post behind the gate, its lens long ago shattered by a rock.

  Jacob first put his bike through the bars of the gate and then turned himself sideways and slipped in. There were advantages to being a child, slipping through things adults couldn’t was one of them.

  Graveyards were spooky after dark, but rarely dangerous. His uncle had told him this just that morning as they made their way along the path toward the spot where Timmy would be buried. Jacob had already known this but nodded anyway, at the same time wondering what his mother would have done with Timmy if there were no relatives to please. Certainly she wouldn’t have spent money on a grave plot, casket and stone. Knowing her she probably would have secretly cut up the body, cooked it, and then told Jacob it was turkey. Once he finished eating she would inform him of the truth, just like his pet cat a few months earlier. She liked doing things like that. Jacob wasn’t sure why and often wished she didn’t.

  There was a strange presence floating throughout the graveyard that Jacob had felt earlier in the day but had been unsure of what to make of it. When he asked his uncle about it he had said that sometimes the energy of the dead stays with their body because it didn’t know what to do.

  You have to be pretty special to feel it my boy. Like your father. Jacob wasn’t sure what to make of this statement and had wanted to ask his uncle about it, but couldn’t because his mother had walked up at that moment and taken his hand. He did know one thing, being special meant you were unlike others, so that meant he was part of a few who could feel this energy.

  It seemed to float around him as he walked down the quiet road, his bike rolling next to him.

  Timmy’s grave was located on a hillside that was sunny during the day and bathed in moonlight at night. Because of this moonlight Jacob saw from a distance that something wasn’t right about the gravesite. As he got closer he realized that the dirt was missing. Someone had dug Timmy up.

  For the first time that night a chill ran down his spine and sprang the hairs on his neck erect.

  Who would do this? Certainly not Timmy, for the casket below was still closed and solid. He would have to claw his way through first and then dig. That hadn’t happened.

  “I knew you’d return my boy,” a familiar voice said from the darkness.

  Jacob whirled around and watched as his uncle stepped out from behind an oak tree. He was too shocked to speak.

  “I’m guessing your mother does not know you’re here?”

  Jacob nodded.

  “Very good. She wouldn’t like what I have to tell you.”

  “You dug him up?” Jacob asked as soon as he found his voice.

  His uncle nodded. “I knew you would call him up, though I have to admit, even I was startled when his coffin tipped. I suppose your power was fueled by your sadness at seeing him.”

  Jacob shook his head. “What power?”

  “You have a gift, Jacob. I’ve known it ever since your father came and knocked on my door several nights after I witnessed him buried. Unfortunately his fingers had been worn away from clawing his way out and will never be useful again. Dead cells don’t heal themselves.”

  Once again Jacob could not speak. He remembered dreaming about his father being alive in his coffin, but hadn’t done anything to call him up -- or whatever his uncle was talking about. That just couldn’t happen.

  As if on cue, a figure stepped out from behind the tree and stood next to his uncle. Jacob gasped loudly. Despite the rotting flesh and worn clothing, he still recognized his father. His hands were terribly mangled.

  His uncle studied Jacob’s father for a second and then said, “At one point he could speak but his tongue and mouth have rotted since then. He told me you called him up and that he needed to serve you. I of course couldn’t let him return to you until I understood what was going on myself and got over the shock of seeing my dead brother.”

  Jacob saw the marks upon his father’s wrists and realized he had been bound for a long time. “You tied him up?”

  “He wanted to return to you and would have if I hadn’t restrained him,” he said. “Now, I believe you have someone waiting for you down there.”

  Jacob shifted his eyes to the closed casket and wanted to believe that his brother was once again alive, only knew that it was impossible -- even after seeing his father here.

  His uncle grew impatient and suddenly jumped down and pulled open the casket. Frightened eyes stared up at him and an unearthly cry rose out of Timmy’s dead lips.

  Jacob was terrified by what he saw and wanted to run away, yet was also fascinated and stood his ground so he could see what would happen next.

  Timmy shifted his gaze toward Jacob and suddenly sat up. “Thank you,” he said through his cold lips. It sounded false.

  His uncle was more excited than Jacob and jumped up and down shouting. “I knew it, I knew it. Your father did this with our pet dog once, but you can do it with people.”

  At the same time Jacob looked into Timmy’s mind -- he wasn’t sure how -- and saw something terrible. He saw his uncle in the pool holding down Timmy’s head until his body stopped jerking about.

  “Just think of the things you can do, the army you could create -- “

  “You did this to him,” Jacob said suddenly, his eyes staring down at his uncle.

  “Well . . . what do you mean?” his uncle asked, his voice startled by Jacob’s sudden change.

  “You drowned him.”

  “I . . . I knew you’d bring him back up. I had to so you would -- “

  “You killed him to see if I would bring him back to life.” Anger was rushing through him and now he decided to see how far his power went.

  His uncle was about to say something but his voice was cut off by the sudden grip of two hands upon his throat.

  His father’s hands, though mangled, could still grip large objects such as a neck.

  Hysterical hands reached out and took hold of his father’s worn clothing and began pulling. The clothing snapped and the hands fell back. His uncle would have fallen as well but his father’s grip was too much.

  The struggling went on for another minute, though each second his uncle got weaker and weaker. Finally his body collapsed.

  Jacob had watched without emotion as his dead father strangled his uncle to death. At the same time Timmy had climbed out of the grave and now stood,
waiting, his body lifeless except for the fact that he was standing there.

  His father let go of his uncle and the three (though Jacob felt that he was really the only one) watched as his body fell to the ground.

  A new wave of energy joined the air. Jacob felt it almost calling for him. He could raise his uncle up and use him, or leave him to rot. Actually, either way he would rot, but was the rotting painful once a body was called up, or just like being dead?

  Jacob called up his uncle and ordered him to get into the grave Timmy had lain in since this morning and then ordered Timmy to fill the dirt back in.

  There was no satisfaction in knowing that his uncle was lying in there till he rotted away. In fact, Jacob wished his father hadn’t killed him and only struggled with him until he got him into the coffin and then buried him alive. That would have been better.

  Oh well.

  Jacob looked from his brother to his father, then at all the silent graves. Could he call all of them up as well? Why not?

  His uncle had said something about creating an army. Sure. There were way more dead people than living people on earth. But what condition did they have to be in? What good was someone whose legs had rotted away, or someone who would fall apart at the slightest touch?

  There were some things he would have to learn about this power, some experiments he would have to perform. Tonight was not the night for this, however. What he wanted now was to get back home and have his father quietly ease himself between the sheets of his mother’s bed and snuggle up against her. Then, later, when she woke, she would be staring at her dead husband. It would be the first of several long, terrible things that would happen to her at the hands of the dead -- the hands of Jacob.

  The Phone Call

  Tom sat in his favorite leather chair staring at the phone, his mind silently willing it to ring, wanting it to ring, needing it to ring.

  The phone stayed silent.

  Staring at it did not help, yet he could not look away. Hours had gone by. The sun had set. Shadows had grown. Darkness descended. It was time.